A Thousand Words a Battle: Spotsylvania
The Mule Shoe Salient, Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 12, 1864
The battle of Spotsylvania Court House opened on the morning of May 8, 1864, picking up where the armies left off in the Wilderness, ten miles up the Brock Road, just the day before. The Confederates took a defensive position, and Federals tried unsuccessfully to dislodge them with direct assaults, flanking maneuvers, and innovative tactics. But the Confederate position had one major inherent weakness: the center of the line bulged outward to form a vulnerable salient, which Grant finally targeted on May 12. He ordered a massive pre-dawn attack by his entire Second Corps, with his entire Sixth Corps on standby as reserves.
John Haley of the 17th Maine Infantry, part of the initial assault wave, wrote of getting into position “in a low, foggy place, so chilly that our teeth chattered and our frames shook like leaves. The mists of morning were very heavy and settled over us like a pall.” After an all-night march in the rain, the men were miserable as they waited for the order to go forward. “The cold, clammy truth dawned on us that we were not far from the enemy and we would soon lessen the distance.”
There we stood in the drizzle, all orders given in whispers, and although we knew we faced a dreadful battle, we were not sorry to hear the voice of Chanticleer, announcing the dawn of a new day. There was something terribly weird in this massing of troops at this time of day, in the hooting of owls as the dark figures of men moved through the pines, in the sobbing of the wind through the wet trees. The order to move to the attack wasn’t half so disagreeable as one might think. . . .
The Rebel pickets didn’t stop to dispute our passage but rushed pell mell over the works. We gave them an “all wool” yell and tore after them. . . .
It was seemingly but a moment before the first line was in our possession…. Every Confederate realized the desperate situation and every Union soldier knew what was involved. For a time, every soldier was a fiend. The attack was fierce—the resistance fanatical. We captured one of their strongest entrenchments, but it was done in a tempest of iron and lead, in a rain of fire. . . .
The Rebels fought like devils, seeming to despise danger. . . . We held them at every point and made them pay dearly for their attempts.
We were held in a vise. We certainly couldn’t advance, to retire was almost as difficult. . . . We held our own, but to do this amounted to nothing. . . .
And so for the entire day the fiercest fighting waged, the oldest soldier has never witnessed its like. Lee’s forces made charge after charge. Lines didn’t give way, they melted away. The dead lay in heaps and others took protection behind them. Pandemonium swept right and left, and the earth was literally drenched in blood. Confederates sprang over the works and fought with the bayonet and clubbed musket till they were pinned to the earth. Federals hurled themselves over and pushed the lines back a few rods, but were soon swallowed up by the rebound.
From daylight till dark this terrible fighting went on without intermission. . . . Who will not say this is not carnage infernal? . . .
All around that salient was a seething, bubbling, roaring hell of hate and murder. In that baleful glare men didn’t look like men. Some had lost or thrown away hats and coats. Some were gashed and cut, and looked like tigers hunted to cover. Darkness along brought an end to the carnage, and men who had scared tasted food for twenty-four hours, or slept for twice that time, dropped to the ground. “Sleep, the twin sister of Death” could not be distinguished from him now as they lay side-by-side one the wet, cold bosom of Mother Earth. Not wet with water alone. War is a leveler, like death; the best and the meanest blood here mingled. . . . This has been a most awful day, and if there has been any benefit commiserate with the loss of life and limbs, I cannot see it.[1]
Federals suffered some 9,000 casualties in the fight; Confederates suffered some 8,000. And the battle of Spotsylvania would go on yet another week.
Haley was among the survivors. He and the 17th Maine served with the army through Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House.
— Chris Mackowski
[1] John Haley, The Rebel Yell & the Yankee Hurrah: The Civil War Journal of a Maine Volunteer. Ruth L. Silliker, editor (Camden, ME: Down East Books, 1985), 155-7.
In my mind this was the most sustained carnage in Civil War. That is of course with many other examples to compare with. Grant sunk his teeth in Lee here and never let go until the end of the NVA in April 1865.